High Contrast Episode 14: The B Is for Bargain

Maurie and Jeremy are still enjoying the summer vacation season. But Rodney, Byron and joe pick up where they left off a few episodes ago with some new hardware options for tablets, TVs and scanning. Oh, and be sure to see the Mailbag as it has a fantastic observation from last month’s discussion on recognizing people.

We start the show off with a discussion of this neat cardboard based appliance that rolls in with a $19 or $29 option. While interesting, it may not replace your traditional flatbed scanning solution any time soon. Still, its fairly inexpensive if you want to try it out. Rodney and Erin elaborate more on the unit they tested in a Tech Access Weekly Democast.

Google Nexus 7 and Chromecast:

Rodney continues the plethora of review goodness with his thoughts on the new Google Nexus 7 (2013). He has seen the original Nexus 7, and of course has a few types of iPads lying around, so he is able to give some low vision comparison musings on this tablet. And, even more hardware!, he tells Byron and Joe about his fun with the new Google Chromecast.

Joe needed something to do while waiting for his solara gold and food to restock. His co workers at Serotek had the answer, and the revenge for getting them all hooked on Solara, with the recommendation of iAssociate 2. It seems that their obsession with this word matching game was just as bad as Joe’s for the game he imposed on all of them. And now they want to get all of you on board with their addiction. Soon you will be linking associations with words in ways you never imagined. How is South Park’s Eric Cartman associated with bones and cakes? If you didn’t already know, you will soon as typing in the right answers helps you defeat these fiendish word puzzles.

Mailbag:

We knew the topic of recognition of men and women was something many low vision people experience, however from the blog comment listed below, we had no idea how this could become even more complicated outside the U.S.. Zivan Krisher says: “Hello, In High Contrast Episode 13, you really hit a note with me on the subject of gender recognition. I live in Israel and Hebrew is a gender specific language. Even nouns have a gender let alone words that refer to people. For example a car is female a computer is male. Thankfully we are less formal over here and I do not need to say ma’am or sir to anyone in daily life. The word “sorry” is gender neutral. It’s not as polite as “excuse me”, but can serve well enough. However the word “you” is gender specific. “At” = female “Ata” = male. So a sentence like:” I’m sorry can you please help me…”, Is still loaded with gender. German is also gender specific, but at least when it comes to plural you can use “Sie” witch is actually also the polite way to approach someone you don’t know. In Hebrew, even the plural of you is gender specific, “Aten” = female, “Atem” = male. However unless all the people you’re addressing are female, it is customary to use the male version of plural “you”. (It’s an ancient language after all). So in most cases when approaching more than one person you’re probably safe using “Atem”. I try to sound people out by saying “Shalom” (Hello) first in an attempt to prompt them to say Shalom back to me and reveal their identity or at least their gender.”

Wow, that is wild. Joe adds that the German language has some of the same aspects, but there are easier ways around this if you just address everyone formally. Japan, and other Asian countries, use Honorifics as well. You can learn more by reading this link.

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